


all this, and love too

by skeletalparade (boythighs)



Series: rising kings [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-18 09:42:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9378959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boythighs/pseuds/skeletalparade
Summary: “I am wondering,” Viktor whispers into the charged air between them, and when did they get so close? Has Viktor’s nose always been a hair’s breadth away from Yuuri’s? “If it would be entirely improper of me to request a kiss. I know that we are not due to be married for several more weeks, but it would be wrong of me to deny that I have been enamored with you since the first time I laid eyes on you.”“Only if you mean it.” Yuuri whispers back, lips parting. Breathless, hard to form words, his throat so very dry, his chest so very tight. “Please, only if you mean it.”“If I am to ever mean anything more than I mean this, then I pray the gods strike me down.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> i was inspired a few weeks back to write this while reading the captive prince books (i'm late, i know), and i'm just now getting around to finally publishing it. i intended to make it longer but i think that i'm actually going to break it down into parts of a series, because otherwise it would have been... massive, and i've been informed that massive fics intimidate readers nowadays. sorry, guys.

Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.

These, our bodies, possessed by light.

Tell me we'll never get used to it.

**_**_\- Richard Siken, Crush_ ** _ **

 

  


♔

 

In the heat of midsummer, the balmy air graces Yuuri’s skin with a lover’s touch as he swings the large balcony doors open to greet the morning light. With the sun heavy in the sky, Yuuri draws in a deep, calming breath, basking in the warmth. Behind him, the door to his room is opened, as well, and he does not have to turn to know that it is his attendant come to help him prepare for the day’s activities. The sun bakes the ground below where people have started to gather, jovial sounds drifting up to him from the palace courtyards.

“Your highness,” his attendant says, and Yuuri turns to face him, sighing at his bowed posture.

“No need for formalities now, Phichit, when you hardly ever afford me with them anyhow.”

Phichit rises with a wide grin, face bursting with glee. He is much more excited than Yuuri himself currently feels. At least someone does not dread this day.

“It’s finally here.” Phichit says, striding into the room and coming to take Yuuri by his hands. No other attendant or servant would dare have the audacity to touch Yuuri, though he doesn’t mind nearly as much as his father does about that kind of thing, but Phichit is a special case. He has been Yuuri’s attendant since they were children, the both of them, and he has been more like a friend to Yuuri than anything else. A brother, even.

“And so it is.” Yuuri sighs, giving Phichit’s hands a firm squeeze.

“Are you nervous?”

Yuuri looks back out at the courts below, blinking slowly, thinking. He is many things, though he does not know if ‘nervous’ is any of them. Anxious, perhaps, and not in the good way. Off in the distance, the trees separating the castle grounds from townsteads proper tremble in the light summer breeze, and Yuuri wonders if those towns and cities, too, have began their coronation festivities.

Today is the day that Yuuri becomes crown prince of Astaria, and he could not be less happy about it.

True, in essence, he was the only heir apparent to the throne. His sister had rejected all rights to it long, long ago, before she had come of age to be formally crowned, and he had no other siblings. The throne would be his, soon, when his parents were no longer fit to rule their country.

Phichit’s gaze softens, his gentle, calming touch sliding up the satin sleeves of Yuuri’s night garment. “You’re going to be great.” He tells him, and Yuuri looks at him, smiling weakly.

“It has never been a matter of my own greatness, I just… do not know if I will ever be comfortable with the thought of one day being king. I do not know if I have it in me.”

“Oh, please, Yuuri. There is no one here or across all of the great waters who more suits the throne than you do. Astaria could not ask for a better rising king.”

In through the window drifts the smell of barbecuing meats, fresh and hot, sizzling on the massive grills that have been fired up just for the occasion. Yuuri closes his eyes, wind playing with the delicate brown strands of hair framing his face, and he releases a breath. He turns away from Phichit, abandoning his grip so that the other boy may gather for him today’s clothing. His nicest linens and attire, picked out by none other than his mother herself, purchased from the country’s best fabric weaver specifically for his coronation.

Everything is meant to change today - Yuuri can smell it on the morning air. He closes his eyes, and allows the feeling to drag him under.

♔

The lake behind the palace rests in the basin of the castle gardens, rose bushes in full blossom, hedges stretching and leaping up towards the blue, infinitesimal sky stretching out above. The bushes are taller than Yuuri is himself, stacked high, high, green and red and pink, lovely during this time of year when one needs to escape the hustle and bustle of the castle. Being out here directly following his coronation may seem uncouth, and he will no doubt be chastised for it this evening by his mother, but the crowds - Yuuri can’t handle them for very long at one time.

The sweet summer air is sticky-hot, but smells divine, here, away from the flames and smoke and sweat-salty people gathering in the courts to celebrate. People from all around the world, the most elite of the elite, have come here today just to see him be crowned, and while Yuuri appreciates the sentiment he is also overwhelmed by the anxious nerves piling like bricks in his gut.

Out in the water, a fish jumps up to kiss the surface of the lake before dipping down. From where he sits on the bench by water’s edge, Yuuri watches as the ripples spread out and out, before the water smoothes over once more. Often, he had come here as a child after a day of lessons, wandering in the hedge-maze, getting lost until an attendant would be sent to bring him back to the palace for dinner, or for a bath. Today he has no further obligations. His party is being thrown without him, and Yuuri feels no regret over it.

“My, you have grown much more fair since the last time I saw you.”

Yuuri jumps at the sound of the foreign voice, accent thick from lands far away. Yuuri takes a moment to try and place it, thinking hard as he knows that it is familiar yet he cannot quite put his thumb on it. He turns to face his guest and frowns, as the person himself is just as foreign as his tongue. The prince’s eyebrows knit across his forehead as he appraises him, trying to dredge up some sort of facial recognition. He cannot.

“Do I know you?”

A look of hurt passes over the stranger’s face, and as he walks closer to where Yuuri sits he tosses his long, magnificent silver hair over his shoulder and tucks it behind his ears.

“I should not be so shocked that you do not remember me.” The man says with a wistful sigh, taking his seat next to Yuuri by plopping down with grace and ease. His face looks pensive for a moment. “It has been… many years since we last saw each other in person, and letters do not do quite so well at translating a person’s beauty.”

Letters?

 _Letters_.

Yuuri gasps, a hot flush spreading over his cheeks, curling around the nape of his neck where it burns and teases the baby hairs there.

“Viktor?”

And when Viktor smiles, there is no question that it _is_ him; that smile of his is one in a million, one that, even though Yuuri had last saw it fifteen years ago today, he could recognize it amidst any.

“I didn’t know you would be here.” Yuuri says quietly, head ducking to hide his face. Of course it makes sense that Viktor would, seeing as-

“How could you ever expect me to possibly miss the coronation of my betrothed, dear Yuuri?”

Yuuri finds a very endued, sudden fascination with the grass at his feet, toes of his boots crunching it down into near mulch.

At age twenty for Yuuri, as of today, their wedding is but a few mere weeks away, now.

They have been promised to one another since Yuuri’s own birth, a union to bring two kingdoms at odds together at last. Twenty years in the making, though, they have only seen one another a handful of times. The last being when Yuuri was but five years old and too young to form any real bonds of noteworthy significance. Even so, Yuuri had held a certain enamored regard for Viktor, walking in ethereal beauty even at an age as young as nine years old. Puppy love, back then, adoration for something he could not ever comprehend being his own.

The letters had started sometime within the past year, a slow back and forth across mountains carried by heralds, carrier hawks, and sometimes by wagon in haste. It had been, to Yuuri’s understanding, Viktor’s earliest stages of courting. A way of allowing them to become familiar with each other at a distance. Yuuri’s parents had encouraged it.

Viktor leans back on the bench with his hands wrapped around the backside to keep him upright, head tipping back and eyes closing so that he may breathe in the heady scent of well-kempt florals and freshwater. Yuuri watches him privately from the corner of his eyes, head still ducked.

In his mid-twenties, Viktor carries tenfold the beauty he had as a child. Yuuri is, for lack of better terminology, gobstopped by it. Speechless.

“We came here as children, too. Do you remember?” Viktor opens his eyes to squint at the bright azures, his smile soft and reserved just for Yuuri. Or so Yuuri might like to think, in any case.

Yuuri nods, after a brief pause to admire Viktor’s profile. The dips and rises of his neck, the divot at the base, his pronounced collar bone. The milky white skin of his chest as it disappears down into his ornate dressings.

“I do.” Yuuri says, in case Viktor has not seen his nod. “We picked flowers and threw breadcrumbs into the water for the ducks. One even chased you about.”

Viktor laughs, the porcelain sound of it ringing clear in the summer air. Yuuri swallows.

As Viktor turns to him, Yuuri averts his attention back to the grass, heart thumping in his chest. His pulse is rabbit-quick and he is hot under Viktor’s gaze, unused to it. Writing had been easier. Pretty cursive script from Viktor could never have prepared Yuuri for this, for being in such close proximity to someone so gorgeous.

Yuuri had always known. That Viktor was beautiful, that is. Everyone all across the planes spoke of it, about how _everyone_ wanted to travel to Etra to perhaps become an eligible suitor for Prince Viktor Nikiforov. When they would discover that he was betrothed, they would wilt, mournful, and when they would find out just who he was betrothed _to_ , their eyes would spread wide in confusion. Prince Yuuri, of Astaria? Are you sure?

Yuuri was not a disliked prince, not at all. People loved him. His country adored him, everyone knew that much.

But the pairing seemed… odd. Unexpected. Their kingdoms had always been on uneven terms with one another. For decades, now, whispers of war had kindled, but their parents had had enough. They had come together and agreed that each heir apparent would marry, to bring them together once and for all. It would bode well economically, and it would settle any further dispute between the nations, this much was for certain.

“I missed your coronation, you know.” Yuuri tacks on after some time of thoughtful, tense silence. Tense for him, in any case. Viktor looks out at the water, now, the ghost of that smile still on his face, as it always is.

Viktor hums, and nods, and does not seem the least bit bothered. The ends of his hair dance in the wind, little twirls and leaps, ballerinas on the stage of Viktor’s broad, well-built back.

“You did, but not willingly, I know. That time was… a time of tension for Astaria, was it not?”

It was. They had been on the brink of war with a kingdom far off west, hidden behind the ice tipped mountains of Olymp, elven territory. For months, negotiations had been made, fought over, and, finally, settled with a peace treaty. During this time Viktor had been crowned, and Yuuri had been loathe to miss out on it, though he knew that there was no fathomable way he could have been transported to Etra without risk. The roads were bumpy and bare beyond the trees and low mountains, a straight shot perfect for attack, and Olymp had made it abundantly clear just how ruthless they could be if it their way could not be had.

“My coronation,” Viktor says, exhaling a deep breath. “Was not nearly as much fun or as beautiful as your own has been today. In Etra, it is a much more official affair. There are no fire breathers or sweet meats, only speeches and vows.”

“Still, I am quite sorry that I had to miss it.”

“Dearest Yuuri, I assure you that you did not miss much.”

 _I missed you_ , Yuuri thinks to himself, and finds that even though he has not verbalized it, he is still embarrassed at the thought of it.

Again, Viktor turns to look at him. To _really_ look at him. Their eyes meet, and Viktor regards him rather peculiarly, with something unidentifiable in his pale blue-green eyes, brilliant cyan made more bright in the afternoon light even as the sun slowly disentangles itself from the sky. Yuuri feels that he… cannot look away. Is not sure that he wants to.

Viktor looks at him as if he is something costly and valuable, the soft, edged features of his handsome face shadowed well by the setting sun’s scant light. The sounds of the festivities seem distant, now, as do the splashes of the lake, the rustles of the leaves behind them. Though it is hot, the stone beneath Yuuri’s trousers feels ice cold to the touch.

Yuuri is entranced.

 _Ah_ , he thinks, _this is why people love him so much. His aura._

Yuuri has read about auras before in his books, the ones he so devotes himself to, but he has never experienced it before now. Viktor may have been too young at their excursion together for his to have manifested, but now.

Now, Yuuri is drowning in some unseen radiation that Viktor exudes.

Auras are, Yuuri has also read, very potent in the case of dragons.

“I am wondering,” Viktor whispers into the charged air between them, and when did they get so close? Has Viktor’s nose always been a hair’s breadth away from Yuuri’s? “If it would be entirely improper of me to request a kiss. I know that we are not due to be married for several more weeks, but it would be wrong of me to deny that I have been enamored with you since the first time I laid eyes on you.”

This time, the leaning in is deliberate, Viktor’s forehead pressing to Yuuri’s, Viktor’s warm, oh-so-warm hand curving to fit around Yuuri’s jaw, fingers resting just behind his ear. Yuuri realizes that Viktor has likely never kissed anyone, just the same as he himself has not - or maybe Viktor has. Maybe, at a much younger age, Viktor had not felt obliged to Yuuri in any way. Perhaps he still does not, and this is all in accordance to what their parents expect of them, and Viktor is doing nothing more than playing the role of acquiescing prince.

The books said that an aura could not lie, though.

“Only if you mean it.” Yuuri whispers back, lips parting. Breathless, hard to form words, his throat so very dry, his chest so very tight. “Please, only if you mean it.”

“If I am to ever mean anything more than I mean this, then I pray the gods strike me down.”

Viktor’s lips are soft, and his mouth tastes sweetly of juices, of candied vegetables. His mouth is yielding beneath Yuuri’s as they kiss, a chaste, easygoing thing shared between them undisturbed by the world around them. Viktor’s other hand comes up to cradle Yuuri’s face, palms sweaty and limbs shaking. Any doubts Yuuri may have possessed before are quelled - Viktor has certainly never kissed anyone before. He could not possibly be this nervous and tentative if he had.

Kissing Viktor is a sensation that Yuuri is sure he will never grow tired of. It is something that sparks something hot within him, to blame on the breathy, barely there sounds that Viktor makes every time their lips break apart. The smacking sound of wetness as the kisses grow more impatient, more desperate. Yuuri shifts on the bench to press himself more firmly in, all but in Viktor’s lap now, and he thrills at it. Thrills at the idea of having this all to himself, as often as he would like.

All of it ends too soon, too fast.

It is Viktor who gives in first, turning his head away to end the kiss abruptly so that he may pant into the now evening air. His grip on Yuuri’s jaw has tightened, taut with nerves. Yuuri is shocked to hear him breathe out a puff of laughter after a moment or two of heavy, hard and fast breathing.

“I should have known that kissing you would have been twice as intoxicating as I had imagined.”

“You had imagined it?” Yuuri feels warm all over, their proximity still close. Too close to be anything other than what it is, so that when the sound of footsteps becomes apparent to the two of them so lost in their reverie, it is suspicious how far they leap apart.

Both of their heads turn to where the garden opens up to accommodate for the lake, wide-eyed and terrified, but Yuuri breathes a sigh of relief when it is only Phichit.

“Phichit.” Yuuri says, clearing his throat and placing a hand on his chest to smooth the newly acquired wrinkles denting his clothes.

Of course Phichit does not look scandalized, for how could he? Instead, he is grinning, aware of the private moment that he has interrupted and not guilty at all for seeing what he has seen.

“Sorry to interrupt, your highnesses, but I was sent to fetch the two of you for the final festivities.”

The fireworks.

It is customary, in these lands, for fireworks to be lit high in the sky upon every coronation. Yuuri has never seen them done himself, obviously, but it has been a pertinent tradition for almost every kingdom on their continent for many, many years. An honoring of happy times, ushering in good will and high morale for everyone within seeing distance.

Yuuri nods, dismissing Phichit, who winks at the both of them before scurrying back off into the maze. Yuuri sighs, but there is a smile on his face. Oh, what is he to do about that boy?

Viktor, on the other hand, looks stunned as he stares off after Phichit.

“I believe he winked at me.”

Placing a hand to his mouth in order to stifle his laughter, Yuuri says, “Yes, he did.”

“Your servants act as such here?”

“Not at all of them,” Yuuri admits with a touch of fondness to his voice. “Phichit is important to me. He has been my right hand for my entire life. When I do rise to the throne, there is no doubt that I will appoint him to a higher position. One he is all too deserving of for all that he has done for me over the years.”

They rise together, the faint light of the setting sun painting the skies a purple and pink backdrop as they enter into the maze of tall hedges again. Their stroll is leisurely, two men still riding the high of a passionate kiss. Yuuri feels, even now, warm all over, a smile tattooed on his face.

“Our servants are much more subdued.” Viktor says quietly, eyes staring straight ahead. “Daring to speak out could mean horrible, horrible things for any of them, even the most highly esteemed.”

Something about Viktor’s voice does not sound keen on this tidbit of information, and Yuuri recalls that in some of his letters Viktor had been very vocal about how much he loathed his father’s rule, how unjust and unfair he could so often be.

There had been much honesty exchanged between the two of them in those letters. Yuuri had been open about just how much he feared his ascension to the throne, one he knew was drawing closer by the day. His parents were meek and feeble, and could not live forever. They were not of dragon blood the way that Viktor and his kin were - their lifespan was but a short, fleeting thing. A candle flame flickering to life only to be snuffed out mere hours later.

“Will you change that once the throne becomes yours?” Yuuri looks up at Viktor, the several inches of height separating them from equal proportions becoming much more defined, and notes the shallow shadows of evening light which dance and wane along the clean, sharp cut of Viktor’s jaw. His mouth is set in a thin line, but when he looks down at Yuuri, something in him relaxes. He smiles, though it does not quite reach his eyes.

“I dream of as much, yes.”

The hedgeline breaks out into the courts, the boisterous noise and camaraderie all around them shattering the shell of their peaceful union. The reality of the day comes back to Yuuri on the wafting scent of saccharine foods in the air, laughter from every direction, dancing bodies. Yuuri turns to Viktor and bows to him, opening his mouth to bid him farewell, but Viktor cups Yuuri’s face and lifts his head back up, looking down at him with a sweet smile.

“None of that.” He pitches his voice over the noise, the gentle stroke of his thumb over Yuuri’s cheek soothing, adoring. “We part as equals, now. So from one prince to another, goodnight, Yuuri. And happy birthday.”

Viktor leans down to ghost his lips over Yuuri’s ruddy cheeks, skirting close to his ear to quietly say, “I shall see you at our wedding, my love.”

By the time Yuuri has his wits about him once more, Viktor has vanished off into the throngs of celebrating people. Somehow Phichit has located him in Viktor’s stead, standing beside him with eyebrows raised high as they both stare off into the crowd where Viktor has disappeared. Yuuri’s hand presses to his hot, hot cheek, holding in the essence of Viktor’s kiss so that it may never leave his skin.

“He kissed you.” Phichit says coyly, smirking from ear to ear, pleased as punch. Yuuri’s head ducks, his other hand coming to hide the wild, manic smile on his face as he thinks about all that has happened today. His time spent with Viktor offsets the anxiety of his coronation, joy to replace his bundled up nerves.

“He did, yes.” Yuuri’s muffled words come after a moment, the hammer of his heart hidden behind the white and blue fabric of his shirt, yet still feeling as if it might burst forth at any moment to splatter onto the cobblestone beneath their feet.

“Your coronation day wasn’t all that bad then.” Phichit snickers beside him, and Yuuri drives his elbow gently into Phichit’s side, but the smile on his face is brighter than any of the fireworks that begin to explode in the skies above. No, it had not been bad. Not bad at all.

**Author's Note:**

> my [twitter](https://twitter.com/yuurikatsukiss).


End file.
